Your ideas are hugely valuable.

--S.B., Orinda, CA, novelist

“The endeavor of writing can be long and lonely. Mary Carroll Moore, master writing instructor, to the rescue! Moore packs How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book with years of gritty good sense and big-picture perspective. Her techniques for drafting, organizing, and polishing a book are practical and time-tested. Here is a first-time book-writer’s best companion.”

--Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew,author of Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir

If I could implement all I've learned from you, I'd have a best-seller!

Pretend you’re a reporter for the New York Times. You’re going to interview your book idea.

List some questions you’d love to ask your book about its form, content, goals. You can start with something nonthreatening, as you would if you were a real reporter.

Ask your book some very good questions. Some ideas from my class are below, or you can make up your own:

What do you want to tell me about yourself?What form suits you best?Who is your readership and how will theyaccess you?What are you most eager to say?What are you most afraid to say?What genre are you?

When it runs out of things to say (or you getnervous about the answers) ask a different question.

The goal of this book-writing exercise is to surprise yourself. You’ll tap the hidden parts of yourself as a writer, the parts we often censor. You can strike gold--if you maintain the attitude of no-assumptions and anything can happen.

Books for the Blocked--These'll Get You Moving Again!

Escaping into the Open by Elizabeth Berg

Listen to Me by Lynn Lauber

Marry Your Muse by Jan Phillips

Pencil Dancing by Mari Messer

The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

Thinking about Memoir by Abigail Thomas

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art, or love, or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.Albert Camus

Thursday, May 17, 2012

How do you find time to write? That's a question I'm asked alot--by other writers, by students in my classes, by attendees at conferences where I give my book-structuring workshops.

I've had a prolific writing career, with thirteen books published. Yet I also have a family that needs attention and a teenager to raise, an elderly parent to care for, a huge garden that both gives me joy and takes a lot of energy, and a passion for painting.

How is it possible to do it all, and do everything as well as I'd like?

Answer: I can't. Nobody can.

But I've learned about what I can do. And it's usually a lot more than I think. If I can take an honest look at what is outwardly derailing my attempts to be a creative, fulfilled person--and what derailment is coming from inside--I can make time for the writing.

First, you need the five fundamentals in place. Last week, I talked about these five fundamentals for writers. See that post here. Once these five are working in your life, even a little, you have a better chance of actually fitting your book into your life. You must allow yourself to make room for writing, just like you'd make room for your grocery shopping or your kid's homework or your sleep. If your writing is left to last, it will never fit in.

This morning is a great example, for me. My wonderful spouse and I tag team childcare, and we talk about it ahead of time. Mornings and evenings are the peak chaos moments, but usually if things are OK, only one of us needs to be "on duty." While one person keeps the morning moving (waking the sleepy teenager, monitoring the clock, gathering stuff to take, heating up some breakfast), the other is allowed to retreat into creative work. This morning was my time, and I woke earlier than usual, sat with my writer's notebook and thought about my chapter-in-progress, all before anyone else stirred. By the time the family was up, I was already at work on the chapter--which is due this week to my writers group. Around me was the normal morning chaos, but because of my agreement with my family, I was able to keep going, without guilt.

This sounds amazing, yes. But when the writing begins to feed us, when we give it time to do so, it helps everyone around us. Writing posted, I had time to help clean up the kitchen, say goodbye to my teenager, kiss my spouse, and make myself something to eat before my own workday began.

I came away really energized. Yes, it took negotiation--but as a family we are pretty good at it now. It also took honoring my own time and space to write--despite the frantic nature of school mornings. But most important, it took me believing in myself--that my writing was as important as everything else that was going on.

You probably know by now that
regular writing has been documented for its healing
benefits. James Pennebaker, professor at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of Writing to Heal, studied the effects of writing on groups of medical patients. His landmark study showed marked improvements in immune function and general well-being from patients who wrote regularly.

Dr. Louise DeSalvo, in Writing as a Way of Healing, narrowed it down. She listed three areas writers must tap into, to benefit the most from writing practice.

Three Areas
1. How did the person feel then (during the event)?
2. How does person feel now, in comparison?
3. Which specific, concrete details, especially sensory detail, describe the past event?

This morning I was writing about a difficult crisis one of my characters is going through. For the writing to be transformative, it must reveal how the character felt when it happened, as well as afterward, and the comparison of feelings between the two. It must also use sensory detail to describe the past event.
To test this theory, I applied it to my character, Molly, after the fight with her father.

If you're working on memoir, the "character" would be you--and incorporating the three areas would make the writing come together in an amazing way. For nonfiction writers, the goal is to use these three areas to provide transformation for your reader. How did the reader feel then, now, and what are the details around the change? You use these three areas in your anecdotes.

In my classes, I ask students to prove this to themselves: to scan favorite nonfiction books, memoirs, and novels from their bookshelves, ones they reread often and feel transformed by.

Here's what they usually tell me: In every one, the authors showed people who (1) felt things in the present moment, and (2) remembered past feelings via backstory and compared the feelings of present and past, demonstrating change. Well-crafted scenes also used (3) specific sensory details to illustrate those feelings.

When I look at my own published books, my best-loved
moments also showed these three healing aspects.
So I try to include these three transformative areas in my writing practice, as questions to ask about my story. When I can, I find using these healing guidelines increases my joy in my practice of my craft.

Writing practice becomes easier as you do more of it. You see how it changes you for the better, how it helps you be happier, how it even keeps you out of trouble. “I create every day,” a painter told me, “because it keeps me happy. I’m less likely to cause problems for myself.” So it is with writing practice.

In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés wrote, “It is the love of something, having so much love for something—whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity—that all that can be done with the overflow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will; one solely must.”

A radical thought: The act of writing can keep you so at peace that you don’t search for problems where there aren’t any.

2. Put your writing time on your calendar. Make it the same time every day.

3. Talk with your family, roommates, spouse, or kids. Explain that you’ll be spending fifteen, thirty, ninety, or more minutes a day on your writing. Ask their cooperation: when you are in your writing space, you are off duty. You can’t be asked questions or talked with.

4. Make a sign that says “Writer at Work” and put it near your writing space or on your door.

5. For the first week, do freewrites for ten minutes each day. Write about something that stuck with you, something that happened recently. One student wrote about going to a movie that week where the audience was primarily elderly people and how the way they laughed, moved her. Another wrote about taking her son to dinner at a Chinese restaurant where large cylindrical red-and-orange paper lanterns hung along the walls and how the conversation blossomed in this colorful atmosphere.

6. Keep these writings in a file on your computer called “Week One.”

7. Start a new file called “Week Two.” Day one of the second week, make a list or freewrite for ten minutes on possible topics for your book—anything you can imagine including. The rest of week two, choose one of these topics each day and write for ten minutes on it.

8. The third week, write about a new topic from your list each day but add one observation of something you experienced, saw, felt, or learned that week. See if you can blend the exercises from weeks one and two.

Follow by Email

Upcoming Writing Classes with Mary

Whether you are trying to write the story of your life for publication or as a family legacy, this class by the author of two memoirs will show you how to organize your stories into readable, interesting work. You'll be introduced to a simple formula that successful authors use to find the central conflict of their story, then plan, organize, and write scenes and chapters around it. We'll explore the value of themes, how action and reflection balance one another in memoir and creative nonfiction, and authorial voice versus narrative voice. $105. Click here for details or to register.Writing RetreatsYour Book Starts Here: Week-long Writing Retreat July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Five days of workshop, personal coaching, and plenty of time to work on your book in our great community of book writers at all stages, working in all genres, on gorgeous Madeline Island off the coast of northern Wisconsin. This retreat will become a highlight of your summer. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

Independent Study for Book Writers July 30-August 3, Madeline Island School of the Arts, Lake Superior Craving time, quiet, and a wonderful space to finally get working (or finishing) your book? But enough support each day, plus community, to do it sanely and safely? Five days of personal coaching, plenty of time to write, and optional workshops to attend make this independent study week productive, creative bliss. Great meals and lodging on campus. $775. Click here for details.

A Little about Me . . .

Mary Carroll Moore is an award-winning, internationally published author of thirteen books in three genres, writing teacher, editor and book doctor for publishing houses. For thirty years she's helped thousands of new and experienced writers plan, write, and develop--and publish!--their books. Photo by Bruce Fuller Photography.

Free Weekly Writing Exercise

Want to get a free writing exercise each week? There are four easy ways. Click on the RSS feed (above) Click on Follow This Blog (below). Subscribe to: Posts (Atom).Or sign up on my website (check Free Weekly Writing Exercise). You can unsubscribe anytime, and I don't rent or sell my mailing lists.

Subscribe to this blog

If you believe you have a book inside you just waiting to come out, here is a guide that will ensure your book’s arrival in the world. In clear, accessible prose, Mary Carroll Moore leads the aspiring author through every step of the challenging, rewarding process of developing and completing a full-length book.

--Rebecca McClanahan, author of Word Painting

Encouraging Words--Well-Known Writers with Large Number of Rejections--But Published!

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo--397 rejections (and it became a movie)A Wrinkle in Timeby Madeleine L'Engle--97 rejections (and it won the Newbery Medal for best children's book of 1963; it's now in its 69th printing)Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson--40 rejections (and it has won multiple awards and sold 150,000 hard copies). Judy Blume says she received "nothing but rejections" for 2 years.Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot--17 rejectionsHarry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling--rejected by 9 publishersThe Diary of Anne Frank--16 rejections (and now more than 30 million copies are in print)Dr. Seuss books--more than 15 rejectionsJonathan Livingston Seagullby Richard Bach--140 rejectionsGone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell--38 rejectionsWatership Down by Richard Adams--26 rejectionsDune by Frank Herbert--nearly 20 rejections

To all book writers: Believe in your story. Keep trying. The right home for your book is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

Want to get the creative brain going?

Book writers (and any writers) need to know how to engage the creative right brain that "writes" in images. Think of any wonderful book that's left you swimming in a setting or characters--the writer has successfully used the image-creating part of the brain. But our normal workaday lives short-circuit this part. Check out this cool video of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist at Harvard Medical School, recounting her personal experience of a left-brain stroke and her awakening to right-brain reality. Pretty amazing fusion of brain science with what it feels like to a brain scientist having a stroke:http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Flying Squirrels Bring Creative Jolt to Novelist

Flying squirrel gets into house--disrupts routine, gets novelist thinking differently. This happened to me! For two days, as I chased the squirrel (actually, it was all night since they are nocturnal), I slept very little. And got many new ideas for my novel-in-progress.Go figure!Maybe...book writers need creative jolts? Routine dulls our imaginations? How has an unexpected interruption actually been a gift for your creativity this week?

At the Loft Literary Center, I can always tell which students in my classes have taken Mary Carroll Moore’s class on book-writing. They talk about writing their book in "islands" and using storyboards to figure out how those sections relate to each other. When another student confesses to feeling overwhelmed by the material her memoir might include, they readily advise, “You should try Mary Carroll Moore’s method.” I second that.--Cheri Register, author of Packinghouse Daughter and American Book Award winner

Copyright ProtectionIf you are a copyright owner of any unattributed image or text on this blog, send me an e-mail and I will remove it or give you credit, whichever you prefer.